Iniye’s Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2025

Year in Books

12,412

pages read

books read

Iniye

The Arrangements by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Shortest Book

pages

Longest Book

620

pages

Average book length in 2025

253

pages

Most Shelved

1,049,148

people also shelved

Shakespeare in South Florida by Christoph Paul

Least Shelved

people also shelved

Iniye’s average rating for 2025

3.8

Let's Write a Six-Word Story or a Poem by M.A. Quigley

Highest Rated on Goodreads

4.91 average

Iniye’s first review of the year

it was amazing

Manal Al-Sharif gives us an eye-opening account of the struggles she and generations of other Saudi women have gone through just to be treated as normal human beings and enjoy basic rights. Right from birth, women are treated as lower level humans and can't make decisions for themselves or their children without the presence or approval of a male guardian—a husband, father, brother, uncle, etc.

Vehicles have been invented to aid us in moving from ...more

INIYE’S 2025 BOOKS

it was amazing

Someone Birthed Them Broken by Ama Asantewa Diaka

When Churchill Slaughtered Sheep and Stalin Robbed a Bank by Giles Milton

The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon

really liked it

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman

really liked it

Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Let Only Red Flowers Bloom by Emily Feng

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

it was amazing

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin

The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg

The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini

it was amazing

You Sound Like a White Girl by Julissa Arce

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

it was amazing

Iniye’s last review of the year

really liked it

“What we think is impossible changes with every generation.”

First of all, Elif Shafak, you're an amazing writer. Also, Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla, you both brought this book to life with exceptional narration.

Have you ever thought about some of the things you leave behind after migrating to a new location? It might be an edifice, a mountain, a river or waterfall, a neighbourhood pet, or even a tree. These and many more shaped our lives dir “What we think is impossible changes with every generation.”

First of all, Elif Shafak, you're an amazing writer. Also, Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla, you both brought this book to life with exceptional narration.

Have you ever thought about some of the things you leave behind after migrating to a new location? It might be an edifice, a mountain, a river or waterfall, a neighbourhood pet, or even a tree. These and many more shaped our lives directly or indirectly, and the further we migrate, the chances of us seeing them physically reduces.

“The human mind was the strangest place, both home and exile. How could it hold on to something as elusive and intangible as a scent when it was capable of erasing concrete chunks of the past, block by block?”

The Island of Missing Trees is set across three timelines—1970s Cyprus, early 2000s Cyprus/London, and late 2010s London. We follow the lives of two teenagers—Kostas, a Greek Cypriot, and Defne, a Turkish Cypriot. Due to ethnic and religious differences in the 70s, Kostas and Defne must hide their love for each other from their friends, family, and some members of their respective societies. But this book isn't just a love story, it's a bold reflection of ideology, culture, war, ethnicity, history, migration, and of course, our interaction with nature.

Going into this book blind, I didn't know what to expect. Never would I have imagined that a fig tree is going to be one of my favourite characters in a book, but Elif Shafak in an amazing way has proven that there's nothing impossible in literature. The ‘Ficus Carica’—Fig Tree—is a very important part of this book, perhaps the most important. A mix between a storyteller and a philosopher of sorts, the tree, with a gentle and wise voice, shares anecdotes about various characters including it(her)self, making us ponder on how the decisions we make as humans affect not just ourselves, but also plants and animals. I'm not going to talk about Ada, Meryem, Yusuf, and Yiorgos. That would be TMI.

In the end, this book reminded me that what we leave behind never fully leaves us—it grows with us, like roots buried beneath the soil of memory.

“Truth is a rhizome – an underground plant stem with lateral shoots. You need to dig deep to reach it and, once unearthed, you have to treat it with respect.” ...more

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